Grant Details

The Foundations have chosen to spread their grant program widely. Over 90% of grants fall into six program categories:

1. Arts and Culture: The Foundations generally fund in this area by supporting the City's "cultural gems";
2. Education: The Foundations have long believed that two strategies for improvement of inner-city public education are accountability and competition. Therefore, they have funded charter schools, school-choice voucher programs, scholarships to parochial schools, and studies and books which examine the role of competition in K-12 educational reform;
3. Employment: The Foundations are particularly interested in supporting job training and placement programs aimed at placement in private sector rather than public sector jobs, and those which foster entrepreneurship. Innovative vocational and trade-skill proposals for ex-offenders, disconnected youth, and high school drop-outs with an emphasis on job placement are welcomed.
4. Health: The focus of these grants has been on the health needs of children and on basic biomedical research. In recent years, the foundations have also supported the work of experts on healthcare reform at universities and public policy institutes. These include tax credits, innovations in insurance, and health savings accounts.
5. Public Policy: The foundations' funding in this category covers a broad range of issues including: health, marriage, race, philanthropy, environment, welfare reform, faith-based programs, and vouchers and charter schools (listed under Education).
6. Youth and Families: In addition to education, recreation, and traditional mentoring, the foundations have a special interest in programs that prevent criminality, father absence, family disintegration, and pre-marital sexual activity among teenagers.

Particularly interest is in funding smaller, neighborhood-based organizations that have not yet attracted broad philanthropic funding and choose to rely on private rather than governmental support. In both Health and Arts and Culture, the Foundations tend to focus their grants on leading institutions, generally where there is a longstanding relationship. In the other areas, special consideration is given to competition, self-help, volunteerism, leadership and character development, parental involvement, consumer choice, economic empowerment, independent living, prevention and earlier intervention, independent research, faith-based programs, free markets, social entrepreneurship, advancing the state of the art, measuring participant outcomes and program results, and strengthening traditional marriages and families.